Parque das Ruínas

This guide to Parque das Ruinas in Rio's Santa Teresa follows the mansion a young heiress, Laurinda Santos Lobo, built here around 1900 and filled with musicians, painters and writers for roughly three decades, among them Heitor Villa-Lobos, Tarsila do Amaral and Isadora Duncan. You'll hear how her salon earned her the nickname the marechala da elegancia, and what became of the house in the decades after she died in 1946. A good spot to listen: the steel walkway threaded through the bare brick.